War Angel

This internet-only mixtape finds 50 Cent trying to peddle some "back to basics" shit that never actually figured in his career in the first place.

Despite diligent scorekeeping from Internet watchdogs, there were no losers in the beef between Rick Ross and 50 Cent from earlier this year. Certainly not Ross-- befitting his completely dysfunctional relationship with reality, he took 50 as a serious threat to his non-existent credibility and somehow ended up with the best album of his life. Not 50 either-- hilarious transmissions from ThisIs50.Com served as better promotion for When I Get Around to It (or whatever he's calling his TBA follow-up to Curtis) than any of his recent singles. And if you were a fan who didn't feel the need to choose sides, or young enough to consider Hacksaw Jim Duggan and Ricky Steamboat the equal of KRS and Rakim in 1988, it was rap-as-Wrestlemania at its finest.

So why the *War Angel LP? *50's gone on record saying the LP appendage in the title is necessary to let rappers know they need to act like 50's competing with them for a record deal, mixtape or not. Granted, he's been popping this "back to basics" shit since before Curtis (we saw how that ended up), and the biggest problem is how 50 is trying to get back to a version of himself that never existed. Even with Power of the Dollar, you didn't rely on 50 for hot punchlines, detailed street narratives, or thoughtful wordplay. You could tell from the start that he was primed to embody the New York Yankees state of mind-- when they're winning, their arrogance and loose spending make them a fantastic heel; when they're losing, you just get pissed that you're still forced to care. He's at his best when he's at his most mercenary (as if you have to be reminded, he's made two albums called Get Rich or Die Trying), and on War Angel, 50 raps like someone who knows better than to give quality shit away for free.

Forget "48 Laws of Power"-- you'd think 50 brushed up on Hobbes' Leviathan the way every warfaring and solitary track is nasty, brutish, and short, with verses of anonymous threats that begin and end at almost completely arbitrary points. Like it was a latter-day Kool Keith album. And although his lisping, sing-song cadence is still a hell of salesman for any hook he comes up with, here he mostly just repeats the song's title over and over again. Like it was a latter-day Kool Keith album. And the album's clear highlight is a skit boasting a possibly fictional event in the projects with completely random guest stars (all the kids get taken to Great Adventure after a pickup game featuring Tim Thomas and Rafer Alston). Like a…seriously, are Pimpin' Curly and Dr. Dooom drinking buddies?

Sure, it's an internet-only mixtape whose sole cost is about 30 minutes of your time, but what makes this truly depressing is how close it sounds to his actual studio records-- turns out he's partial to short-arms/deep-pockets imitation of Dre whether Interscope is financing it or not. We can't even get the kinds of diss tracks we should expect from a guy who'll never run out of money: You'd think he'd at least use "London Girl" as a vessel for, I dunno, a decent Estelle gag or subliminals at Kanye, but instead you get five seconds of the worst British accent ever heard.

That's really the worst part of this project: On earlier mixtapes, 50 castigated rappers who took themselves too seriously. But here he comes off like another guy whose stint on Aftermath took all the fun out rapping. It's not surprising that "I'll Do Anything" is the lone passable track on War Angel, since 50's area of expertise as of late is making sex-for-financial-security songs so condescending that they actually manage to attain a bizarre sincerity.

"I can't fit in with these niggaz, man!/ I mean niggaz got mohawks!/ And wearin' skinny jeans." That's about as clever of a skewering as we get here, not even worth the effort of pointing out that it's a curious attack on rap masculinity from a guy who has never shot an album cover with a shirt on. In actuality, 50 Cent fits in absurdly well in today's rap-is-pop landscape, lest we forget that "Best I Ever Had" will never catch on with your little sister and parents like "In Da Club" or even "P.I.M.P." did. It's not that he doesn't fit in, he's been passed by and is now hip-hop's easiest rite of passage: outsold by Kanye, ignored by Wayne, artistically outstripped by Rick fucking Ross, and even the Game can't seem to be bothered these days. Good thing Relapse came out, because that seems like the only way we'll hear 50 Cent on a platinum record in 2009.